Something Shiny

Over the last week and half ago or so, there seems to be a resurgence in blog buzz (bluzz? buzg?) around Evernote. I first recall hearing about it as an alternative to Google‘s Notebook product that they ultimately decided to wind down. At the time, I wasn’t too impressed by Google Notebook, so I didn’t pay much attention to Evernote.

So why is Evernote great when Google Notebook was only meh?

Well, a few months have passed and we’re in this bluzz over Evernote again so I figured I’d check it out. Wow, much better. The key advantage Evernote has is they’ve put time into creating native apps for a variety of platforms.

1. Mac OS X Leopard
2. Windows
3. iPhone / iPod Touch
4. BlackBerry
5. Palm Pre
6. Windows Mobile
7. Web Clippers
8. SanDisk U3

As my current phone is a WinMo based… device and I’m hoping to move to a Pre next (or at least a WebOS device), I should be covered on the mobile front. And it’s not just a static copy of your notes on your mobile device either. You can add hand written notes on touch-screen devices, photos, text notes, and voice notes from your mobile (or desktop).

Speaking of desktop support, because there is a native client for most desktop users, global hot-keys make it easy to create new notes with selected content, or new blank notes.

There is a web client, but I’m least impressed with that. It’s fine, and at least as good as Google’s Notebook interface, but then again, I didn’t like Google’s Notebook interface. It is nice for access should you be away from your desktop and for some reason you don’t want to (or can’t) use your mobile device.

The best part about Evernote, though, is search. Searching is fast. And not only are you searching the content of your text notes and text clipped from another source, but images are OCR‘d (optical character recognition) so that you can search the contents of pictures you may have snapped on your phone, or hand written “ink” notes from a touch-screen phone or tablet computer. Fantastic!

After playing with it for about a week, I’ve decided it’s more acurate to call Evernote a web-enabled notes application than a web-based tool. The web connectivity is certainly key in syncing notes between devices and OCRing images and handwritten notes, but it’s not just a web toy. So, if you think, as I did until recently, that you don’t need a web enabled notes tool, give it a shot. I think you’ll like it.

One final note, there is a free and a paid version ($5/month, $45 annually). So far, I haven’t found a compelling reason to move to the paid version, although if I ever wanted to store more sensitive data, the HTTPS would be nice. Here’s a comparison chart of the two versions:

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